San Antonio – Empty tennis courts might be one of the byproducts of sheltering in place but Net Generation – the youth brand of tennis for the USTA – launched its Tennis at Home programming in March to keep young players and their families active.
Leah Friedman is the National Manager for Net Generation and said from the beginning, the program has been making tennis accessible to players coming from varying tennis resources and that the stay-at-home orders have provided an opportunity for the Community Tennis team at the USTA to get creative.
“Throughout our last two-and-a-half years, for us it’s always been meeting players where they are and we know that some players have access to courts and programming, some players will stay at home so we have had a lot of these videos before it was stay-at-home,” Friedman said. “But I think more so now, we’re really looking to engage with those videos more and then also take those as a stepping stool for what comes next.”
The videos located on the Net Generation website provide tennis-related activities and tips in addition to educational programming. The content can be streamed while practicing social distancing and from the comfort of home and does not require equipment, eliminating barriers for families from staying active.
“It’s no court no problem,” Friedman said. “So, just because we’re not playing tennis on the court doesn’t mean the game has to stop and you can learn the fundamentals at home, you can learn build a love of the game starting now that will carry you to the courts when we go back. But, you know, we want our families to stay safe, we want them to play together and we really want to keep our world healthy and active during this time.”
Traffic to the website is twice what it was on the same dates last year as the content is providing an important and fun recreational outlet. Brent Salazar works as the USTA’s Director of Performance and said the mental health component of staying active is an essential part of overall physical health.
“It’s very much an outlet,” Salazar said. “I mean that’s one thing that we’re talking about a lot for our athletes is not just plug in one session a day, can we make smaller sessions multiple times a day because there is an outlet. And is an outlet just to move around for 10 minutes and go back behind your computer and play video games. I mean a lot of our athletes are playing a lot of video games right now and so to constantly get them up and down and move around a little bit is going to be a little bit better for their bodies.”
Net Generation will continue to produce content once the pandemic subsides and videos can be found by accessing the program’s website, https://netgeneration.usta.com/.